For Seinfeld fans it was sadly not a case of festivus come early. The "secret" Seinfeld project confirmed by Jerry Seinfeld on Thursday, a one-off "short-ish form" show reuniting some of the original cast members of the 90s sitcom, had led to some excited speculation about a full reunion. Jerry and George would be there, Julia Louis-Dreyfus would take time off from Veep to reappear as Elaine and Michael Richards would no longer be remembered as the man who played Kramer. He could be Kramer again.

The Modern Seinfeld twitter feed had been reviving the show with 140-character fan-fiction plotlines, such as "Elaine Instagrams other people's photos to seem cool. A cute guy falls for Instagram Elaine but real Elaine can’t live up to her fake life." Maybe the original cast and creators could do the same?

The signs were all pointing to it – Jerry Seinfeld and Jason Alexander as George Costanza were even photographed filming exterior shots outside Tom's Restaurant …

And that turned out to be pretty much it. The "short-ish form" was indeed short – a minute-and-a-half halftime broadcast during the Super Bowl serving to promote Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee website.

The synopsis is as follows. George and Jerry are at Tom's Restaurant because they aren't at the Wassersteins' Super Bowl party. We learn that Jerry had an invite but George did not because of his behaviour the previous year, when he "overcheered" and banged on the tables.

The dialogue isn't thrilling, but does contain a fragment of the show's observational humour:

﻿﻿George: You mumbled something.

Jerry: If I wanted to tell you I would say it. That's the point of the mumble.

George: I know the point of the mumble.

It ends with the arrival of Jerry's nemesis/postman, Newman, who is greeted with the words familiar to any viewer of the show: "Hello Newman". The six-minute clip on Seinfeld's website adds an introductory montage of Jerry driving, a plug for the sponsor, more footage of Jerry and George driving to and from Tom's Restaurant and two lingering shots of filter coffee being poured into cups.

For a "show about nothing", perhaps appropriately, it was a reunion about not very much.